


(insert sound of: static)

by RaineyDay



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [9]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Memory Loss, Nonverbal Communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29360106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaineyDay/pseuds/RaineyDay
Summary: Day 10 of Febuwhump: "I'm sorry. I didn't know."There were no records of the Voidfish affecting anybody's memories like this. She would know; this ship was the only place where such records could even exist anymore.
Relationships: Davenport & The Director | Lucretia
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138502
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11
Collections: febuwhump 2021





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**Author's Note:**

> So. This fic was hard for me to write. I've got a lot of complicated feelings on Davenport and his portrayal in canon and in fanon, re: communication. I particularly have feelings as an autistic person about how nonverbal/semiverbal characters and people are viewed, and how Davenport sort of fits that particular concept of nonverbal/semiverbal and also sort of doesn't fit it.
> 
> This also explores the horrible idea I had a while back that maybe Lucretia sometimes wondered if restoring Davenport's memory would do any good for his mind after all that anyway.
> 
> I didn't think it was relevant enough to tag, but also a warning for some vaguely self-deprecating thoughts from Lucretia.

Lucretia didn't understand how this had happened. Nothing like this had ever happened before. And she had done her research enough to be almost certain of that. She always spent her cycles documenting the planes they went to, including history and stories when it was an option. And she'd gathered so many stories about the world the Voidfish had lived on. They had never run into anything like those creatures before, and she wanted to get whatever information on them that she could while she still had the chance.

It had ended up being a very helpful set of notes, when she'd come up with this plan. She'd read and read those notes since she came up with her plan, and again and again after implementing it.

The people of that plane had never, ever recorded anything like this happening. There was nothing about what she'd done to her captain.

There was nothing she could do to fix it.

The boat she'd gotten for him was stuck in drydock. She could probably have sold it or something, but she couldn't bear the thought. That boat was Davenport's, designed to be exactly to his liking, and it couldn't be anyone else's, no matter that he might not ever be able to use it.

It was possible he'd be able to use it someday, maybe, and so she needed to save it for him. To maintain it.

The damage to his memories interfered with his ability to function on his own, but it need not be permanent. He was already getting so much better. He could walk, and understand speech, and communicate what he wanted, just... not in words.

It was the strangest thing, and if it weren't so horrifying, she'd be fascinated. He had lost so much in the memory wipe, but it was odd, what he had retained. It didn't make any sense- that he retained the ability to speak, but nothing more than his own name. Didn't it seem more logical for him to have either lost the ability to speak at all, or instead lose the memory of all language, not just almost all of it?

She didn't want him to have lost anything more than he already had, of course, but the oddity would strike her sometimes, when she couldn't stop following her tortured thoughts down every rabbithole they managed to dig.

She had thought that she understood the risks of her plan- the risk that she would fail, that her family would hate her when they remembered, that the lives she'd created for them wouldn't be sustainable- and she'd accepted those risks.

She hadn't accepted this.

She still couldn't.

She spoke to sages, and clerics, and scientists when she had the time, in between checking on the boys, looking for Lup, and advancing her plan. She didn't explain the whole situation to them, of course, but she offered what she could.

Nothing helped.

She eventually broke and told the truth to a cleric who had joined her organization. One that she knew she could trust. He knew that this information was sensitive, and he would never breathe a word of it. He would especially never tell her friends, understanding that the knowledge, without context but too familiar to be dismissed, ran the risk of destroying their minds.

Still, he had no suggestions to help her understand what had happened to her Captain, and if he would ever recover.

She wondered if her family would let her see Davenport again when they remembered. She wouldn't deserve it. But maybe they would allow her to take care of him if the rest of them ever got too busy with their lives.

It was naive to assume that she would succeed at this point, and therefore she ought to shut this line of thought down. She couldn't let herself settle into assuming that she would survive the implementation of her plan, or even that she would actually save this world. It was too early to let herself hope.

But she hoped that she hadn't lost her Captain forever. Maybe her family would allow her to spend the rest of her life taking care of him as a form of punishment? It wasn't truly punishment to take care of someone she loved, of course, but if he continued as he currently was and didn't grow much more, then someone would have to.

The choice that she had made was the only choice she could have made, but there would be punishment for it regardless. Sometimes there is no right thing to do, only varying types of wrong things. If she succeeded, her plan would save the world, but it would have wronged her family. She was right and wrong at the same time.

And she deserved to be punished for this. Davenport was struggling because of her.

Some days, he was better than others. Some days, he almost seemed to be his usual self again, aside from the word that he spoke.

Other days, he seemed to be lost in his own mind, unable to reach the rest of the world, as he searched his mind for what had gone missing.

It was those days that had her hesitant to offer him his ship. He was getting so much of himself back, but what if he had a bad day and there was no one around to help him? Even if he got someone (her) on the Stone, he couldn't explain the situation he'd ended up in when he only had access to one word and tone of voice to convey it.

She couldn't risk it.

There was a slim hope in the back of her mind that he would come back to himself when he got his memory back, but it would be naive to assume that. And it would break her to hope for that and have it fall through.

The memories might help, maybe, but the damage had been done. His mind had already collapsed in on itself. How would shoving more into that mess fix anything? There was an equally likely chance that it would only confuse him more.

Maybe- if she _knew_ which outcome to expect, she could make a decision, instead of sitting at her desk staring at a vial of ichor that could heal or shatter her heart, unable to offer it to Davenport, unable to toss it out.

But she had learned better by now than to assume that she knew anything about what might or might not happen.


End file.
